Our Mundane Journey began because Lincoln was in town and wanted to get something done with as many SFØ players as possible. So Lank, Noob and Lincoln got together and came up with a plan. The phone number was called. A time was set. An event was created.

On the proper day and time, Lank & Lincoln came from the East, while Noob & Cezanne came from the South. They met up en route and when they four arrived at the corner in question they were greeted by Bjorn. The five initial explorers headed to the NorthEast corner as they were instructed to do. And no sooner did the arrive when they were joined by the lovely Miss Minx.

These six went about exploring the corner as well as it could be explored. The corner was dominated by a Honeybaked Ham store. It had the shape and feel of a store, but it did not look at all inviting. It was certainly closed currently, but it may have been closed for some time. There were boxes in the display windows, where perhaps there should have been ham, or gift baskets or something other than cardboard boxes. This was very curious. There was a lot of empty space in the store. There were very few displays, and the displays that were there looked fake somehow, like they were props from a movie. But a low budget movie. The corner also had newspaper vending machines and a trash can on the West side and a bus stop on the South side.

We were convinced that there had to be more to this corner so we entered the building that occupied the corner. We decided to take the elevator to the top floor. Once on the top floor a door was discovered that led to a storage type room, and in the back of the room a door was discovered that led to the roof. So after our intrepid group found roof access, we went to the corner of the building and took a group photo (with Sutro in the background).

And once the roof was thoroughly explored, we went down to check out the North West corner. It was at this time that our fearless adventurers were fortified by three new members, as Sam, Sean & Lara showed up. So now with nine members, we headed off to the North West corner at full strength.

The North West corner was dominated by the Sanai Memorial Chapel. A place for Jews. We got the joke. A chapel for the Jewish across the street from a store that sells ham. We explored every inch of the outside of this building. The front doors were locked, but Lincoln rang the bell and asked if we could look around, maybe take a tour? We were told that we could certainly take a tour, but it would have to wait for normal business hours. Poop. But we looked around and explored every inch of that corner, look at the pictures for more information on what we found.

From there we traversed the cross walk to the South West corner where, to all intents and purposes, we wandered about, witnessed and absorbed our surroundings. Some of us looked for clues, while some of us dérived and some of us just noticed the world going by around us. That corner was pretty dead with hardly anything at all really... oh wait, there was a chainlink fence with an array of locks locked to locks and locks locked to fence. It was a sight that we all bore witness to, admired, and then carried on. Behind that fence was a parking lot paved with gravel and dressed with the occasional weed growing at its perimeter. On to the next corner.

The main feature of the South East corner was an apartment complex with giant pine trees growing in front of it. A woman walked by and Bjorn and Lincoln got into a conversation with the nice lady about the corner and it's features. We discussed the signs and possible future corner improvements, and the nature of the Mundane Journey. We decided to check out the apartment building. On the side closest the corner were the fire stairs. We all decided it was best to take those fire stairs to the top. When we got to the floor and before the stairs got to the roof there was a chain obstructing the roof access with a sign hanging from the chain instructing all unauthorized persons to keep out. Since we had to find roof access (again), we had to trespass on the way. Now that we all made it up to the roof, there wasn't much to see. It was just a gravel roof. But we explored it thoroughly. We took a group photo, but it was taken on Sam's camera (because Lincoln's good camera ran out of battery) and Sam hasn't uploaded photos yet. Maybe someday you'll get to see that group photo.

Once we were done with the roof, we went down. On the ground floor was a suggestion box mounted to the side of the building, so we all decided to write suggestions and put them in. While we were in the middle of writing our suggestions, the building manager came out to see what we were up to. There were a lot of us and she wasn't sure what we were up to. She wasn't hostile, but she was curious. And she didn't understand the concept of a Mundane Journey. She thought we should maybe all go see a movie or something. There wasn't anything interesting about an old apartment complex. We tried to tell her that was the point. But Bjorn and Lincoln just talked in circles. Everybody remained very polite, but we could tell she wanted us off of the property, so we excused ourselves.

We all went to lunch together, and then went our separate ways. The story would have been over there, except that while walking home, Lincoln spotted the land lady from the apartment complex walking home. She waved, he waved back, and he went over to talk to her, and they talked for quite a long time. Apparently she was waiting for her brother to show up, which is why she was looking out the door, so when she saw us, she assumed we were her brother's friends. But when she got out there and saw all of the white people and her brother wasn't among us, she then wondered why we were lurking out her back door. Once all of that was cleared up, and she realized we were just out to explore, Lincoln and she talked about philosophy and human nature and fun things to do in San Francisco.

The journey was rather mundane, it was a journey anybody could take on any day in any city, but because we were looking for something to happen, things happened. We found adventure and interaction and possibility where perhaps others that were looking for the fastest way home would have missed the details we all picked up on.

We think there is a lesson to be learned in this. Mundane Journeys can be taken anytime anywhere, and you don't need a voice on an answering machine from some phone number to tell you to go find it.

I know that corner well, being next to Kaiser. The ham store has good sandwiches as well as giant hams, but does their business more on word of mouth (if you'll excuse the pun) than on their store displays. Hooray for roof access!